January was a great start for me as my condo was finally turned over!  It was five years in the making and I was glad that my hard work all these years are starting to pay off.  As for fitness, everything is as usual for me—no races but still maintaining my gym regimen to reduce the holiday gains.  I was able to squeeze in a quick shoe review as well.

February was the month of the Chinese New Year.  It gave me time to visit the city of Manila on foot and enjoy the sunset by the bay.  I also started my condo renovation project and was pretty much busy looking for design inspirations.

March was when I had my first (and only) race of the year.  It was also the time I started noticing the defects on my condo unit—this ordeal will last me the rest of the year, but that’s for another story.

April was when I had my annual Visita Iglesia tradition.  It’s one of the longest run I’ve had for the year and was also when my Brooks Levitate 2 had its debut.  I still haven’t found the time to write my review about it but it had become my daily driver so it had accumulated hundreds of kilometers by now.

May was my busiest month of the year.  I joined the F45 Playoffs where I realized how unfit I was, participated in the active (running) launch of the 2019 National Milo Marathon, and covered the Alaska Ironkids event.  It was also the election month so I got to exercise my right to vote as well.

I started trying products from Decathlon by June, starting with their Nabaiji swim goggles.  It took me until the end of July to get the review posted as corporate life started taking over my personal time.  This had become the norm for most of the year which meant that blogging will have to take a step back for the meantime.

August gave me a break though as adidas Runners Manila celebrated their anniversary and I got to run with them on the streets of Intramuros and breaking in the Pulseboost HD.  I haven’t had the chance to thoroughly test the shoe so watch out for my review.

September and October brought my site back to dormancy but on a personal note, this was the month when some of my condo renovations were getting completed—at the same time when major building-wide defects were being fixed in my unit.  Those months were indeed very frustrating on my end and at times I just found myself sitting in a corner, surrendered.

November kickstarted me back as the holiday season had begun, sales everywhere (11.11, remember?), and also the 11th anniversary of my blog.  This month took a heavy toll on my savings as most of my condo projects completed.

Finally, December.  It was the month that my Fitbit Charge 2 finally retired but I’m thankful that I was only down a few days as my Fitbit Inspire HR arrived soon after.  My condo renovations were also approaching completion as well but I may slow down my projects due to funding.

Overall, I can say that 2019 is the lowest point of the past 10 years for me.  I lacked the time and motivation to keep doing things that I wanted, I exhausted my funds with my projects, and I wasn’t even able to get a vacation!  The closest thing to a vacation that I got were the active events that I attended and some out of the office team building activities.  My blog took the heaviest toll with my absence as I saw my audience plummet to just a fraction of what it was from its heyday.  I guess this was the year that social media made blogs obsolete.

Regardless of this down trend, I’m still glad that this blog survived the year, it still has some followers, and on a personal note, I did have projects completed.  And when you’re at the bottom, there’s nowhere else to go but up!  And so with that, I’m closing 2019 with renewed optimism and hope for a better year ahead.

To everyone that stuck with me during these troubled times, thank you!  Hope you had a better year than I did, and may your new year be more!

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